Gad was the name of the pan- Semitic

god In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

of fortune, usually depicted as a male but sometimes as a female, and is attested in ancient records of Aram and

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

. Gad is also mentioned in the Bible as a deity in the

Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...

(Isaiah 65:11 – some translations simply call him (the god of) Fortune), as having been worshipped by a number of

Hebrews The Hebrews (; ) were an ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic-speaking people. Historians mostly consider the Hebrews as synonymous with the Israelites, with the term "Hebrew" denoting an Israelite from the nomadic era, which pre ...

during the

Babylonian captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred ...

. Gad apparently differed from the god of

destiny Destiny, sometimes also called fate (), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Fate Although often used interchangeably, the words ''fate'' and ''destiny'' ...

, who was known as Meni. The

root In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...

verb in ''Gad'' means ''cut'' or ''divide'', and from this comes the idea of fate being ''meted out''.

Israelite connection

It is possible that the son of Jacob named ''Gad'' is named after Gad, or that Gad is a

theophoric name A theophoric name (from Greek: , ''theophoros'', literally "bearing or carrying a god") embeds the word equivalent of 'god' or a god's name in a person's name, reflecting something about the character of the person so named in relation to that d ...

, or a descriptive. Although the text presents a different reason, the ( ketub) quotation of Zilpa (Gad's mother) giving the reason of Gad's name could be understood that way. How widespread the cult of Gad, the deity, was in Canaanite times may be inferred from the names ''Baalgad'', a city at the foot of Mount Hermon, and ''Migdal-gad'', in the territory of Judah. Compare also the proper names ''Gaddi'' and ''Gaddiel'' in the tribes of

Manasseh Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier * Jacob Manasseh ( ...

and

Zebulun Zebulun (; also ''Zebulon'', ''Zabulon'', or ''Zaboules'' in ''Antiquities of the Jews'' by Josephus) was, according to the Books of Genesis and Numbers,Genesis 46:14 the last of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's tenth son), and the foun ...

(Numbers 13:10, 11). At the same time it must not be supposed that Gad was always regarded as an independent deity. The name was doubtless originally an appellative, meaning ''the power that allots''. Hence any of the greater gods supposed to favor men might be thought of as the giver of good fortune and be worshiped under that title. It is possible that

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

, the planet, may have been the ''Gad'' thus honoured; among the Arabs, the planet Jupiter was called ''the greater Fortune'' (

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

was styled ''the lesser Fortune''). Gad is the patron of a locality, a mountain (

Kodashim 150px, Pidyon haben Kodashim () is the fifth of the six orders, or major divisions, of the Mishnah, Tosefta and the Talmud, and deals largely with the services within the Temple in Jerusalem, its maintenance and design, the ''korbanot'', or sa ...

, tractate

Hullin Hullin or Chullin ( lit. "Ordinary" or "Mundane") is the third tractate of the Mishnah in the Order of Kodashim and deals with the laws of ritual slaughter of animals and birds for meat in ordinary or non-consecrated use (as opposed to sacred us ...

40a), of an idol (

Genesis Rabbah Genesis Rabbah (, also known as Bereshit Rabbah and abbreviated as GenR) is a religious text from Judaism's classical period, probably written between 300 and 500 CE with some later additions. It is an expository midrash comprising a collection of ...

, lxiv), a house, or the world (Genesis Rabbah, lxxi.). Hence "luck" may also be bad (

Ecclesiastes Rabbah Ecclesiastes Rabbah or Kohelet Rabbah (Hebrew: קהלת רבה) is an aggadic commentary on Ecclesiastes, included in the collection of the Midrash Rabbot. It follows the biblical book verse by verse, only a few verses remaining without commentary ...

, vii. 26). A couch or bed for this god of fortune is referred to in the

Mishnaic The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

tractate Nedarim 56a).

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Israelite connection

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Further reading